Main Content

2016 June 7 - It is with great
pleasure to announce that former BMMB graduate student, Shuyi Zhang (Bryant
lab) and former BMMB graduate student, Molly Hall (Ritchie lab) are
co-recipients of the Fred Wedler Outstanding Dissertation Award. Each year the
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department selects a Ph.D. dissertation to
receive the Wedler Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award. The monetary award
is given to the student whose dissertation is judged to be the best, based upon
evaluation criteria given to the student’s dissertation committee. All students
defending a Ph.D. dissertation are automatically considered for this award.

Shuyi Zhang graduated from Penn
State in the summer of 2015 with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular
Biology. He is currently a postdoctoral scholar working with Professor
Christopher A. Voigt at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is now
involved in projects to build complex genetic circuits that can control the
conditions and timing of a cellular response, which will enable a wide range of
applications, for example, cells that communicate to build a material, or
navigate the human body to treat a disease.

Molly Hall graduated from Penn State
in 2015 with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Microbiology and
Molecular Biology. She is currently a
postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Jason Moore’s lab at the Institute for
Biomedical Informatics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of
Pennsylvania. Under Dr. Moore’s supervision, Hall is developing software
methods to identify genetic and environmental components involved in the
development of common, complex disease.